India’s Olympic showing: Flop or success?

The investment bank, Goldman Sachs, almost got it right with its prediction of five medals for India in the London Games. It might have got the colour of the medals – it predicted two golds – wrong but wasn’t off the mark by too much given that India won six medals only because Saina Nehwal won her bronze due to her opponent’s injury.

One of the standard methods for predicting sporting success has been the correlation of winners to per-capita wealth. But that can never be the entire explanation. Otherwise how do we explain Ethiopia, whose per capita income is one of the lowest in the world, winning three golds in London (India incidentally ranks a lowly 161 out of 226 countries in per-capita GDP)? Goldman Sachs uses a more sophisticated measure, which captures different aspects of the political, institutional and economic reality of countries, to come up with a prediction. That this formula is by no means infallible is shown by their underestimation of the gold medals won by the US and China, but to their credit they were bang on for the tally of Great Britain (though they predicted one more gold than what GB won) at 65 medals, which was 18 more than the 2008 Games. Of course, numbers alone cannot predict sporting success which depends on among other things the stage of economic development of a country, sporting infrastructure, funding, a winning tradition in a particular sport and genes.

India’s performance in the London Games, looked at in terms of population, number of competitors sent and the high expectations, was ordinary. But placed in the context of India’s Olympic record where, if you leave aside the eleven medals in hockey India has won only seven individual medals in all before the London Games (with three of them in the last Games) in 20 outings, it is encouraging. Needless to say India’s showing in hockey was a huge disappointment but with a world ranking of No 10 before the London Games the team was not really expected to do much.

What has led to the spike in India’s medal tally in recent times? Obviously India’s economic growth over the past decade or so has had an effect. But the real difference is more targeted state funding and greater private sector involvement. While the government and sports officials are justifiably given the stick for India’s poor sporting performance, the Sports Authority of India has made a difference. The SAI centre in Imphal, which has thrown up several world-class athletes, is a good example. SAI spent around Rs 135 crore on 16 disciplines in 2011-12 of which nearly a quarter went to shooting and boxing, where India won three of its six medals in the London Games.

The other important element has been funds and expertise provided by not-for-profit organisations for 30 of the 81-strong Indian contingent at London. This is up from only five in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Besides help for athletes there has also been corporate sponsorship for sports academies, which should go a long way in training future winners.

In India, where millions don’t have access to basic health and nutrition (India ranks 134 in Human Development Index), a coercive national sports machinery such as in China or the former Soviet bloc is neither desirable nor practical. What the state really needs to do is create sporting infrastructure so that India’s children have the opportunity to play sports and to provide the resources to spot talent. The corporates, as they are doing in a limited manner, as well as schools and universities should step in to fund training and travel for those with talent. That’s how it works in most of the world.

Of course nothing succeeds like success. Cricket took off because India started doing well from the 1980s; hockey slumped from around the same time due to its lack of success. India’s recent success in shooting, archery, boxing and wrestling has drawn several youngsters to these sports and attracted corporates.

The mantra of the founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, about competing and not necessarily winning might sound archaic. But there’s some truth in what he said. It’s important to get more of India’s youth to step into the playing field than to relentlessly pursue medals. Sporting success will follow.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Author

Ronojoy Sen is a Senior Research Fellow at ISAS & ARI, National University of Singapore. He has worked for several years at The Times of India, last serving as a senior assistant editor on the editorial page. He has wide-ranging interests from politics to books to sport. He is the author of the forthcoming Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India (Penguin) and Articles of Faith: Religion, Secularism and the Indian Supreme Court (OUP), a revised version of his PhD dissertation at the University of Chicago. He is also the editor of several books, including the forthcoming Media at Work in China and India: Discovering and Dissecting (Sage).

Ronojoy Sen is a Senior Research Fellow at ISAS & ARI, National University of Singapore. He has worked for several years at The Times of India, last ser. . .